


How Stars are Made

by neerapen, rosenlight



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Astronomy, F/M, Female Crowley (Good Omens), First Kiss, Gabriel is there for a cameo, Golgota Crowley was a beautiful lady, M/M, The Nice and Inaccurate Science and History of Good Omens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 19:15:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20263150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neerapen/pseuds/neerapen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosenlight/pseuds/rosenlight
Summary: In 47 A.D., Aziraphale and Crowley met briefly out of mutual boredom (but as always, it's Crowley who moves first).





	How Stars are Made

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sherlocktheholmes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherlocktheholmes/gifts).

> Written and arted for the Summer 2019 Good Omens Fan Exchange,specifically for sarahtheholmes's prompt "first kiss" (and you could say it has also the "adopting a pet" prompt in it too, except it's not a conventional pet).
> 
> Edit 25/08/19 - now with fancy notes in full GO style

Of all the wonders Aziraphale saw in his life, not many could compare to the stars.

They were a fascinating part of Creation that always left him with his head up towards the sky, looking for the shapes that humans saw century after century: sometimes the same figures, sometimes with different names, different myths to justify their presence there, none of them boring in any way.

It started back in Mesopotamia and it never stopped: one group of stars would become a fearless hero, glorified in many poems, then another, and another and suddenly every hero and heroine had to get a place among the stars.

But one could also move just a bit to the East and there new figures, new heroes, new animals would take those same spots, and the Milky Way would become a legendary river, separating two lovers and creating, maybe, the first case of what later would become the much loved trope of star-crossed lovers.

It was a little pastime of Aziraphale, collecting data regarding such creative human endeavors, first on stone, then on clay tablets[1], then on paper[2].

Star were fascinating, for many reasons.

"I put _sss_ome of them in there, you know," a chuckle at his right, a movement behind Aziraphale, and Crawly –Crowley was suddenly peeking at the scroll on his left.

"Stars?" Aziraphale asked, putting aside his rudimentary nib.

"And all there is between," Crowley added, voice melodic and still slightly more feminine than usual.

"I wasn't around for that," Aziraphale hummed. "A pity."

"Indeed," Crowley closed her yellow eyes, on a particular phrase that Aziraphale just wrote, the tilt of her head enough to communicate her curiosity. "Huh, you went to Hai Nei?"

"They don't call it that anymore[3]," Aziraphale informed her, clearing his voice. "Why are you here?"

"Difficult to keep up. What are they calling it then? Middle Land? Nine Kingdoms?"

"I'm not really sure."

"Hai Nei is funny. Also has a nice ring to it," a pause. "I was bored."

Ah. A bored Adversary wasn't a good thing indeed. Last time, Crawly ―Crowley, _Crowley_ spent apparently forty days with Jesus, trying to show him everything he could ever see and experience, before Up Above realized that he was the man they were waiting for to bring up Christianity[4].

"New ones?" Crowley pointed at one of the constellations Aziraphale had carefully rendered on his scroll. Aziraphale shook himself from his thoughts and squinted his eyes at his own calligraphy: he definitely needed a new nib.

"Not quite. Old ones, with some variations, mostly on the myth behind it," he informed the demon.

Crawly hummed: "No one for Jesus?"

Aziraphale frowned: "No. Christianity isn't really big on looking at the stars, at the moment."

"Too busy hiding, I guess," Crowley sighed, sitting next to him on the tiny, improvised bench Aziraphale found for himself on the streets of Tīsifūn.

"What are _you_ doing here?" Crowley asked, her lips curling up in a mix of disgust and something that only Crowley could convey about her opinion on Aziraphale's, well, everything.

Aziraphale didn't like that face one bit, so he straightened his back and he took a deep breath: "I am writing down things I've learned today."

"On an old cart somebody had abandoned after both of its wheels gave out? In the middle of the road?" Oh yes, Crowley had a knack for stabbing Aziraphale's pride right where it shouldn't even be.

"As it happens, yes, I am." He was too tired for miracles, tonight, but he couldn’t really said that, couldn't he? That would have been risky, because no matter Crawly's (_Crowley_, the demon wanted to be called Crowley now, oh dear he'll never learn it sooner enough), what was it? Ah yes. Crowley was the Enemy. And Aziraphale should really remember that.

But he was bored, too.

"Why the stars?" Crowley asked, her voice a bit quieter, and Aziraphale tilted his body to face her better. There was a strange glint in her eyes, something curious, hungry of knowledge, something intrinsically bound to the Serpent of Eden.

"There was a shower of them yesterday," Aziraphale explained. "The annual one."

"Oh, yes!" Crowley smiled, and everything in her smiled too: her eyes, her skin, her wings, carefully hidden, but not enough for who knew where to look. "I found a nice place for myself and some kids. They were looking for a lost lamb, I told them it could wait a bit."

"Of course," Aziraphale said.

"Oh don't give me that. The lamb came to them right after," she brooded, looking at another scroll he had carefully placed near the open one.

"Right," Aziraphale gave her the scroll, a bit perplexed, and she tilted left, then right, like a pendulum, before taking it and opening it.

"What'_sss_ this about?" She asked, looking for a new paragraph.

"Math," he said, right when she realized herself, slowly putting it down.

"Why would you even write about that?" her tone was slightly off. Less musical. More…

"Are you angry?" Aziraphale asked, putting the scroll back in his satchel.

"No," a bit too quick. Definitely more like the first time they talked. A bit cynical, a bit sad. Maybe a tiny bit confused. She sighed: "It's just that… Math. _Sss_tars. It brings me back."

It was weird, in a way, for Aziraphale to connect the dots between Crowley and the angel she was before the Fall. It made him slightly uncomfortable, because it reminded him that, well, they didn't use to be that much different, in the beginning.

Aziraphale had also the suspicion that Crawly used to be very Up in the Beginning, most likely higher in rank than him[5].

It was also the first time that Crowley actually gave him any information on how much close to Her she used to be as an angel. And that made the most curious part of Aziraphale pop up like a flower at the sight of dawn.

"How do you create stars? Or did. I just. I wasn't really entrusted with much Creation, just guarding it, mostly."

"Never?" Crowley asked, and she seemed sad for him, somehow.

"Well," he cleared his voice. "I can perform miracles, so of course, I can create. I did so, many times. But I never…_Created_." He shrugged, closing his constellations scroll. "Minor things, never got to help much in that front."

Crowley tilted again, left, then right, then she suddenly threw a miracled bone at a dog that was looking at them from a side road. The dog took it and disappeared as quickly as the wag of a tail. "I could show you," she said, melodies back in her voice, and Aziraphale saw a memory of a time when he was at the feet of the Throne and choirs of angels sang above Her.

Higher, Crowley used to fly so much higher than him.

"Can you still do that?" technically, demons weren't powerless at all, but thinking they could still perform, well, _good_ deeds seemed a bit strange.

Crowley nodded, then shook her head, red locks escaping from her cape. Aziraphale had the feeling that the next time, Crowley would probably appear in front of him as the exact opposite as she was in that moment, her long hair gone after two thousand years.

"You can," she said, and there was a little smirk on her face. Full demon, that smirk. Aziraphale suddenly remembered that he wasn't supposed to talk with her.

But, oh, he was _quite_ bored, lately. And wouldn't such an experiment be beneficial for his scrolls?

"I can?"

"Well, _we_ can. Since I'll have to guide you through it," she pointed out. "Also, we'll have to stop at some point, nothing good can come from creating another Sun on Earth. We don't really want you lot to come down here with their flaming toothpicks."

"Not at all," the further Gabriel stayed from him, the better for Aziraphale's nerves. He turned on his makeshift stool and faced Crowley.

She stood up, beckoning him with her left hand. "Come then. We don't want to burn your precious scrolls, don't we?"

Aziraphale followed her, nodding, and he cleaned his hands on his coat. It was starting to look a bit too consumed on the seams, but Aziraphale had all the intention to stick with it till the end of its time. A pity that time itself had another program for it altogether.

Standing in front of Crawly, Aziraphale quickly realized, was a bit jarring.

No one was around, and they were just there, in the middle of the road, facing each other. Usually, by a weird mutual understanding, they talked by standing side to side, Crawly almost always on his left, avoiding a, well, what they were doing in that exact moment.

"First time for everything, huh?" Crowley observed, clapping her hands and rubbing them together, as if she just read his mind. She looked around, wet her lips with what looked like a forked tongue, peculiarly enough, and took Aziraphale's right hand, making him want to bolt for a tiny, infinitesimal moment. "You need to think of something you love. Should be easy for you, no?"

Aziraphale nervously nodded, because yes, angels were supposed to love everything, but thinking of something to love right off the bat? He wasn’t prepared!

"Less thinking, angel," Crowley commanded, pushing his hand on his heart, or where his body's had an heart anyway. "Focus on something, anything that you love. Your scrolls can do."

"I love my scrolls," Aziraphale admitted, avoiding to point out that Crowley was far too close and her hand was still keeping his in place.

Crowley smiled, all teeth, and Aziraphale felt that little terror inside of him say hello again to the demon, before settling. "Now, Aziraphale," and the way she pronounced his name was like a hymn she liked very much, "let that love manifest outside."

Aziraphale blinked, staring at her: "Manifest outside?"

"Yes, as simple as that. Creation is a miracle in itself, you don't have to overthink it too much."

"You said math was involved," he pointed out, nervous all of a sudden.

She huffed: "I told you, I'm not going to let you create a true star. It would be a massive mistake."

"But the process is the same?" he insisted, mind going to look for all the informations he had related to math and stars: they weren't much, especially when creation of stars were involved.

Crowley stared at him, yellow eyes a bit more golden than usual: "You are terrible at this, aren't you, angel?" And that was a subtle way to suggest that he was a bit too similar to Michael, and _that_ didn't appeal Aziraphale one bit.

Aziraphale steered himself and pushed his own hand against his body's heart, more or less where the core of his essence was, and he was basically letting Crawly, a demon, touch it. He took a deep breath and chose not to think about it too much. Banishing Crowley would take him a couple of seconds, anyway. Well, hopefully, that is.

"I'm ready," he said, with a nod.

"Doesn't really look like it," the demon observed, deadpan.

"I _am_," he insisted, staring at her right in the eyes.

"Good," she said, "keep your eyes open, or you won't' see it. Focus on that love. Think of how much joy it gives you to find a new scroll to read. A new one to write. Your favorites tablets, if you have some."

"Clay is very handy," Aziraphale pointed out, concentrating as requested. He thought of stars, and what Crowley could teach him about the real shapes that were intended with Creation, If there were some. His scroll would be the first one with an accurate depiction of the sky, if Crowley still remembered how it seemed.

"It reminds me of you," Crowley commented, and Aziraphale focused on the demon again, feeling the press of her hand move from his right one, up to his cheek in the mimic of a caress, as if she was still able to _cherish_, and _love_, and _care_.

And _he_ was the centre of that care.

The brightness started right when he finished that thought, but then his mind started spinning a whole concert of thoughts around that single one, and the brightness, he saw, was originating between the distance of their lips, slowly, slowly brightening as much as Crawly closed the distance between them, a smile on her face and eyes closed as if to bask on the warmth they were _both_ creating. Because it couldn't be all him. It _couldn't_. He wasn't focusing on his love for his scrolls at all, he was too absorbed to look at the tiny star between them, how it turned Crawly's hair in specks of gold and copper, how beautiful the demon looked and, and…

The light gave out, because _Aziraphale_ gave out, blinded by something he forgot right after it happened.

"Not that terrible, after all, it seems," Crowley said, a smirk on her face, her voice a bit raspy, as if burned by what just happened.

"I…" Aziraphale blinked, and Crowley hands were gone, and she was waving at him, moving away from him in that peculiar way she walked, like a snake sauntering around in the sand.

"Don't worry, I took care of it. Might take you a while to find it, though. It wasn't that strong," she observed. And did she just implied that she― that _he_― that _**they** put a star in the sky? _

"You said you wouldn't let me create one!" he protested, looking up to the sky and suddenly realizing why she was retreating from him.

"_Eeeh_. I got distracted," she said, and he felt a ring of a bell and suddenly she was gone, and Gabriel was coming down the other side of the road, complaining about the time and what, in Her name, did Aziraphale just _do_?

He had an hard time to come up with a good excuse to justify his sudden not-so-minor miracle, thanking Crowley for giving him enough information[6] to tell Gabriel how he just had to make a little experiment to check if his calculations[7] were in fact plausible enough to be applied in reality.

So, Aziraphale's first star was born that night, registered by Heaven with a name that humans would have ignored for a more creative one, and he also got a strong reprimand from Gabriel because of it, plus an order to _not do that ever again_.

And the worst of it was that his star, who should have born out of love _for his scrolls_, was now a little, almost immortal dot in the sky, glaring evidence of is utter fascination_ for his Enemy_.

Enemy that he promptly decided to avoid for _at least_ a decade after they separated that night.

*

In a night of 1941, the star, unbeknownst to both Aziraphale and Crowley, turned into a supernova the exact minute a bomb fell on a church of London, releasing what they both entrusted her with for centuries without even realizing[8].

**Author's Note:**

> 1\- much more handy [ return to text ]
> 
> 2\- his favorite, in every form he could find it [ return to text ]
> 
> 3\- In fact, they stopped calling it such around the 700 BC, timidly trying out with Zhōngguó, a name that seemed to appeal the locals since then  [ return to text ]
> 
> 4\- Aziraphale still was not really happy with Gabriel's "I delivered Jesus, so I can also decide to kill him however She deems necessary". Also, there was the thing with the "Father" bit. Aziraphale wasn't really sure why that happened. Crawly swore it had nothing to do with her. Probably some connection troubles with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Communication wasn't really the clearest, when you tried to deliver a message by Holy Fire. [ return to text ]
> 
> 5\- Even before he was demoted to Principality himself. Although there was some fun about that, since humans seemed to be convinced that Aziraphale was still upper in hierarchy than Gabriel, who didn't seem to know a thing about this little, umpteenth misunderstanding. [ return to text ]
> 
> 6\- That is, that stars and math are connected [ return to text ]
> 
> 7\- Nonexistent, because he had still the slightly suspicion that Crawly did everything by herself [ return to text ]
> 
> 8\- And, for the star's utmost frustration, the situation would have solved itself only after an averted Apocalypse and some changes of attitude on both Aziraphale and Crowley's part. [ return to text ]
> 
> ___________________________________________
> 
> me: is a sap  
also me: is a sap also when I draw


End file.
